Adventures in Electroacoustic Performance
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FIG. 10: Matthews performs at San Francisco’s Aquarius Records in May 2000. The portability of her live-sampling setup lets her work in just about any environment with an electrical power source (Click for image). |
Like Masaoka, Matthews has been an artist-in-residence at STEIM. With STEIM’s Jorgen Brinkman, Matthews retrofitted her violin with a pad of six controls that serve as remote-to-MIDI switches for her Peavey PC-1600x MIDI controller. Despite the upgrade, Matthews prefers to concentrate solely on using microphones and live sampling and has temporarily suspended using violin in her solo performances (see Fig. 10).
Matthews is one of the few musicians actively using STEIM’s proprietary live- sampling software, LiSa. Matthews says the software is intuitive and works well for sampling, processing, and playing material in an interactive performance situation. She creates performance templates that let her make spontaneous music—without spending endless hours programming.
Matthews takes full advantage of LiSa’s ability to control sampling and processing using MIDI data from external controllers, such as a keyboard, faders, pedals, or strings. For example, Matthews uses the PC-1600x to send sampling commands and to play samples. She employs foot pedals to send continuous controller messages or to determine a loop’s starting point or length. LiSa also lets Matthews immediately access and play the samples in a variety of layered combinations. The sonic results range from fuzzy, chopped, and twisted to eerie and ethereal.
Matthews runs LiSa on a Mac G3 PowerBook; she also uses a Behringer 8-channel mixer and a Boss SE50 FX unit, in addition to the PC-1600x. She occasionally augments that setup with ultrasonic tracking sensors for converting movement into MIDI data. This allows a dancer or audience member to use his or her body to produce sounds, whether deliberately or unintentionally. Although Matthews has collaborated with a number of choreographers, she generally prefers to use unwitting participants as primary contributors to an event.
Stay Tuned
What do these these three artists have in common? They possess large doses of imagination, motivation, and determination that keep them creatively vibrant and make them exemplary sources of inspiration for anyone creating electroacoustic music.
Through self-reflection, research, and good old-fashioned hard work, Bobrowski, Masaoka, and Matthews have developed highly individual approaches to music making that transcend technology. Whether it’s transforming physical phenomena into sound, extending a classic instrument’s vocabulary, or using the environment as source material during an improvisation, the restless energy these artists exude will keep them at the forefront of creative music for years to come.
A visiting scholar at Carnegie-Mellon University, Bean is tearing up the school’s Entertainment Technology Center while teasing new ideas for collaborative music-making schemes from the students. Gino Robair is an associate editor at EM.
Reprinted with permission from
Magazine, April, 2001© 2000, Intertec Publishing, A Primedia Company All Rights Reserved
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